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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28642002">In the Mist, Under a Starless Sky</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatternsInTheIvy/pseuds/PatternsInTheIvy'>PatternsInTheIvy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MacGyver (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Also Magical Inaccuracies, Don't look at this too closely, Gen, Medical Inaccuracies, Mild Angst, Mistborn AU set in modern Earth, Stabbing, The Mistborn AU that no one but me asked for, Wild capitalization, because why not?, mild whump, so I wrote it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:42:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,293</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28642002</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatternsInTheIvy/pseuds/PatternsInTheIvy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>During a mission, Mac and Jack get separated. Mac gets somewhat stabbed, and there’s magic.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In the Mist, Under a Starless Sky</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If anyone reading this knows Mistborn: I did intentionally desecrate the magic system a lot in the making of this fic to suit my purposes. I don't regret it. </p><p>If you don’t know Mistborn: all you need to know is that consuming and burning (activating) different metals gives certain people (called Mistborn*) different powers. This magic is called Allomancy. Burning Pewter enhances strength, resistance, balance and speeds healing. Running out of Pewter to burn can be dangerous, and burning it for an extended period can lead to exhaustion. Aluminum sort of cancels all the other powers. Tin enhances the senses.</p><p>*There are other types of magic users, but in this fic Mac is a full Mistborn and that's what matters.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ducking behind a container, Mac knelt on the floor and checked his messenger bag, looking for his stock of metals. Flaring a bit of Tin, he could see despite the darkness of a night where part of the moon hid behind the clouds.</p><p>Mac stared at the vials in his hands and cursed mentally.</p><p>He was out of Iron and Steel and so there was no way to literally push himself out of this situation, even though there was a fucking lot of metal around him that would be useful to anchor his weight.</p><p>No Atium either, he told himself as he ran through the usual mental list. Well, that part wasn't his fault—the mission should have been easy, the kind of simple get in, steal a computer  which may or may not contain sensitive information, get out. No one had even considered bringing Atium to this op. Hell, they hadn’t even brought comms.</p><p>What they had not predicted was dealing with people who not only knew about Allomancy but also were prepared to deal with a full Mistborn such as Mac.</p><p>Bad intel sucked.</p><p>Of course, not being totally reliant on Allomancy gave Mac an edge. Those mercenaries might be used to dealing with common Mistborns, but not with one who would cause explosions using what he found laying around.</p><p>Being severely outnumbered still was not something so easy to overcome, though, and the signs of that were all over his body—aching spots on his back and chest, where he’d been hit. Burning Pewter helped alleviate the pain, but he still could tell that tomorrow his body would be littered with bruises that would take some time to heal, even with Allomancy.</p><p>He couldn’t even call Jack to find out where he was, because his phone was lying at the bottom of a water tank where it fell earlier.</p><p>This was it. He needed to somehow get rid of those mercs, find Jack, and then get to exfil.</p><p>Taking a deep breath, Mac peeked on the side of the container but saw no one approaching. His other senses weren’t of much help either. All he could hear was the faint sound of the wind, and the only smell he could distinguish was that left by the rain. None of that was of use to tell him where his enemies were, or many they were. Last time he counted, there were two mercs after him. He’d taken care of the rest.</p><p>He sort of regretted not having brought any Zinc or Brass. Manipulating the emotional atmosphere was certainly his least favored and practiced part of magic—that was much more Cage’s thing—but… well, maybe he would have been able to do something if he had those metals with him now, but he didn't.</p><p>Well, he still had Pewter, lots of it—okay, perhaps not lots, since Pewter could butn deceptively fast. Three full vials, plus the amount that he had ingested earlier and had not burned yet. Without a second thought, Mac opened the vials and downed all the remaining Pewter. He didn't burn it, though, not yet. The Tin he was burning was at the end, and soon he wouldn’t be able to see.</p><p>Jack would kill Mac for this—well, first Jack would kill him for getting separated—then, he would bring Mac back to life and kill him because of <em> another </em> Pewter drag. Come to think of it, Matty had been promising to bench Mac if he pulled another one of his—as she called them—reckless cases of allomantic abuse. An exaggeration, in his opinion, but he wondered if this would be the time when both Jack and Matty would join forces to give him grief for just being good and, well, a bit enthusiastic about his job.</p><p>It wasn’t like he had any other choice now, he was in for another Pewter drag, or he was going to die.</p><p>Besides, burning Pewter would also help him to heal faster…</p><p>Which, yes, was kind of important right now, considering that one of the mercs had been able to stab the upper part of his left arm with a glass spear. The cut was about four inches in length, but what worried him more was that it was deep—he wore a black shirt, and though he couldn’t see the blood, he could feel it in the way the fabric of the sleeve clung to his skin.</p><p>He burned Pewter—just a low, background, burning to help him with that wound. Having no idea of how long it would take for him to deal with the mercs made it necessary for him to use his reserve of metal wisely. And as soon the Mercs realized that Mac was out of both Steel and Iron, there was a possibility that they would bring guns down on him, and <em> that </em> was even worse than the glass weapons suited to fight against his powers.</p><p>The Mists, feared and avoided by most people, were faint today. Mac wouldn’t have needed Tin to see through them. That was actually working to his disadvantage. Before he found—or rather, was found by—the Phoenix Foundation, the Mists were his only loyal, ever-present company, keeping him hidden. They were his home, protective and freeing at the same time. Sure, things had changed a bit, in these last eight years, but the Mists were still something that he could trust, and he would rather they were heavy today.</p><p>Straining his ear, he tried to listen farther, to pick up a sign from Jack. He was met with nothing but the white noise common to places such as the deserted neighborhood he found himself in, and the wind. No sound of fighting, nothing. Mac’s heart beat a bit faster, when he considered what that could mean…</p><p>So concentrated he was on listening to the sounds from far away, that Mac only noticed that there was someone approaching when it was too late.</p><p>A sudden high pitched sound filled his ears. It was so loud, and it hurt, sharp and insistent as if there was someone pressing an icepick into his brain. Before he could even understand what was happening, he felt another pain, coming from his scalp this time, as someone grabbed him by the hair and turned his head in the direction of a bright, pulsing source of light. In a daze, Mac felt his body start to collapse to the floor under the sensory assault. The hand on his hair held him upright, though, sparks of pain exploding from the points where the strands were being pulled…</p><p>… It took him time—it could have been just a second that seemed to last for eternity—to recover enough presence of mind to stop burning the Tin and close his eyes. Before he could push the person holding him away, he felt a sharp hit against his right side, and then again, and a third time.</p><p>Flaring a large quantity of Pewter, Mac held both hands of the person who was attacking and threw his assailant away, who collided against a surface with a violent crashing sound. Experience told him that the chances of people still being capable of fighting after a push from a Mistborn flaring Pewter like that were slim, so he counted one enemy less now.</p><p>Mac burned just a bit of Tin. He was still recovering from the sensory overload from seconds ago, and there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t try the same trick again, but he needed to see, and to find a way to get in contact with Jack, or with the team back at Phoenix.</p><p>As soon as the Tin enhanced his senses, Mac doubled in pain. Blindly, he searched for support but ended up just sliding against a rough wall, gasping as his knees hit the floor. He touched his burning side and, inspecting his hand, saw the dark stain on his palm and fingers. At the same time, he felt the metallic smell of blood reach his nose.</p><p>He shouldn’t be feeling that much pain. Even though he was burning Tin, the Pewter should make up for the sensitivity, and just block out most of the pain while he healed. Flaring Pewter again, he stood up, a groan escaping his lips as his wounds protested the movement. Shit. There was something wrong, he just didn’t know what it was.</p><p>Mac kept burning Tin, and the faint light from the moon was enough to guide him to where the merc he’d just fought was. Walking as quickly as he dared, he got to the merc and searched his pockets, luckily not taking long to find a phone.</p><p>Blood was running down his side, seeping through the waistband of his pants, and Mac allowed himself a brief moment of panicked confusion because <em>that shouldn’t</em> <em>be happening</em>. No matter the severity of the wound, Pewter should have been enough to at least avoid bleeding out before he could have his injuries checked.</p><p>He quickly dialed Jack’s number and, as he waited for Jack to pick up the call, he rested his weight against the wall, trying to find a comfortable position that didn’t upset his wounds.</p><p>“Who are you?” Jack said, answering the call.</p><p>“Jack it is me—”</p><p>“Mac!” there was relief in the man’s tone, but then he went on, “where are you, Mac?” voice sharp with irritation, like he was ready to start a lecture on safety practices.</p><p>As if Jack had <em> any </em> right to talk about that, being the person who rivaled Mac (and Desi) on pulling reckless shit. But Mac and Desi <em> were </em> both Mistborns, so they sort of had the job of doing crazy stuff, right?</p><p>“I can send you my location,” as he said that, Mac moved, and a hiss escaped him.</p><p>“Are you hurt?” Jack asked, all the annoyance leaving his voice, replaced by concern.</p><p>“I was just a bit… stabbed,” Mac said, “I’m just chilling, waiting for the Pewter to help me heal,” he added before Jack could get too concerned, “it’s fine. I’m just flaring too much Tin, to help me see, and that’s making the wound hurt a little.”</p><p>Mac getting stabbed or shot at was nothing new, and usually, that was something easy to deal with. He didn’t know why he was still bleeding that much, and why his wounds hurt—they hurt somewhat like before he’d found his powers and couldn’t use Pewter to take the edge of the pain off.</p><p>“A bit stabbed,” Jack practically shouted.</p><p>“I am fine, Jack, you know how it is.”</p><p>“Yeah, I know how it is. You doing fucking crazy shit like getting separated and then getting <em> a bit stabbed. </em>Do you want that on your tombstone? Here lies Angus MacGyver, he was a bit stabbed.”</p><p>Mac rolled his eyes, but Jack's exasperation was, in a way, comforting. He'd spent so much time alone, before joining Phoenix Foundation, and it was still a bit of a heady notion that people did care about him beyond whatever he could offer them because of his magic.</p><p>"I am sending you my location," Mac replied, "and isn't it a bit morbid to discuss what is going to be written on my tombstone?"</p><p>"Not if you keep trying to get one," he paused, "Well, Mac, you are a mile and a half away from me. And you're farther away from exfil. I dealt with the guys that were following me, what about you?"</p><p>"I fought a dozen mercs and now I think there's only one remaining. I'll try to find him."</p><p>"No, nevermind that, just meet in the middle. Get to the road near the block you are now and just run north," Jack said, "we'll get to exfil then."</p><p>Well, if Jack was asking that, it meant that he believed when Mac said that his wounds were not serious. Good.</p><p>Mac opened his mouth to reply when his eyes caught on something metallic and shiny near the merc. It was the knife he'd been stabbed with. A glass knife that should shine like that, unless…</p><p>God, the knife was coated in Aluminum powder, and now the way his wounds weren't healing, and the pain he was in made sense. That was so not good.</p><p>"—'re you there? Mac!"</p><p>Shaking his head, Mac tried to dispel the frantic thoughts that were starting to appear and answered Jack.</p><p>"I think I saw the last guy that is after me, I gotta go. Meet you at the road."</p><p>Ending the call, he took a deep breath, flared Tin to listen to the sounds around him and, when he was reasonably certain that there was no one near, he pushed his shirt up, using the light from the phone screen to inspect the wounds on his side. The cuts were on his side, a bit lower than his ribs, and he had to curl a little to have a good look, and the movement had him biting his kid to hold a groan.</p><p>Oh shit.</p><p>He'd known what he was going to see, had known since he saw that knife and the powdered Aluminum on the floor, but to actually look at the wounds was another thing and the sight made his stomach feel heavy.</p><p>Aluminum was around the edges of the cuts, fortunately, not a lot of it seemed to have gotten into him, into the cuts yet—most of it was probably on his clothes, but… it was bad. Two of the cuts were not so deep, but the third had a sluggish and constant trail of blood pouring out. They wouldn't heal faster, not until all the Aluminum was cleaned.</p><p>The thing was: he didn't have the means to clean those cuts now, and he didn't want to risk getting the metal further into his body. He remembered one of Desi's advices now—if you're hit with Aluminum, don't try to play the field surgeon, and just get the hell out as soon as you can.</p><p>Desi wasn't a person to give a lot of advice, and Mac, admittedly, wasn't the best at following them, but that right now sounded like something that he should really stick to. He'd heard of Mistborns who ended up dead because of Aluminum.</p><p>Using the wall for support, he hauled himself up. Mac prayed that the last merc didn’t find him, because he really shouldn’t use his metal reserves for a fight rather than getting out of there. Pewter might not speed the healing of his wounds, but it would at least hold the symptoms of blood loss at bay, and Mac would rather not think about the moment when his reserve of the metal eventually ended, and he was hit with the exhaustion and those symptons all at once.</p><p>Taking the three vials of Pewter at once had been the stupidest thing he’d done tonight. If he had any to spare, he could simply burn any of the Aluminum that got into his body—which would deplete the reserves of any other metal—and then take the remaining and be fine, or as fine as one could be in that situation.</p><p>Silver lining: at least his lungs looked uncompromised—the thought of getting Aluminum in his lungs made him shudder—and he wasn’t totally incapacitated of running to meet Jack.</p><p>Always keeping an ear open for potential sounds of pursuit, Mac started in the direction that would take him to the road near. The Tin was enough to help him see through the neighborhood full of abandoned, old houses. A few of them had patches of grass that had grown to the height of his knees, and that had been invaded by weeds. In the places where the terrain was rougher, he simply walked, and then sprinted when he was back on flat land. All in all, it looked like things would be fine… if he could get to exfil before running out of Pewter—which was very unlikely to happen…</p><p>But that was something to think about later.</p><p>When he got to the road, Mac started to really run, steadily burning the Pewter, which allowed him to run faster than normal people were capable of, and even though he was leaning heavily on his uninjured side, he could still move swiftly—or as swiftly as he could.</p><p>Mac had been running for a few minutes when he started to feel the pain on his side intensifying. It went from the constant burning ache that got sharper as he moved to a white-hot flaring that made it hard for him to breathe, and he found himself abruptly stopping, panting, his breaths coming in loud gasps as he curled down a little, left hand against his upper thigh as he tried to find any sort of support.</p><p>He’d been stabbed once, years before and when he still didn’t know about his powers, but he didn’t remember it hurting this much… but, well, the memory of pain could be like that, it faded with time and made him underestimate it. And what he felt now was ten times worse than what he remembered. The heaviness in his stomach intensified, he wasn’t sure if that was because of the pain or the blood loss—maybe both.</p><p>More concerning was the fact that he didn’t know why the pain had worsened like that… or, rather, he did guess the reason, and it was nothing good. Aluminum was interfering with Pewter, making it less effective. The same was probably true for Tin.</p><p>Squinting, Mac noticed that his vision wasn’t as sharp as before, and all of his other senses, although still enhanced, felt less accurate than before.</p><p>There was no sign that anyone was following him, but he needed to get out of there as soon as possible. So he burned Pewter more intensely than before. After a few seconds, the flaring pain faded into a dull burning, and he started to run again.</p><p>Eventually, he felt his reserve of Pewter dwindling—God, why did the metal have to be the fastest one to burn?</p><p>He was fairly sure that he’d run enough, and with sufficient speed that any normal person following him wouldn’t have been able to keep up, so Mac stopped again, breathing hard through his nose and mouth. There were two choices: keep running and surely collapse, or waiting and just maybe collapsing.</p><p>Maybe was better than surely, right?</p><p>He sat down on the side of the road, picked up the phone and called Jack again. It only ringed once before he heard the voice on the other side.</p><p>“Hey, hoss, did you beat up the guy too much?” Jack asked, and the way his voice sounded confident made Mac feel a bit guilty for having lied.</p><p>Taking a deep breath, Mac closed his eyes as he started to speak, “Jack, remember when I said that I was stabbed. Well, I—hm, there was Aluminum involved.”</p><p>He waited for the response, but none came, so he decided to add the most important part.</p><p>“I’m not really healing as I should, and I can’t keep running—”</p><p>“Okay,” Jack interrupted, his voice was strangely calm, “so you lied to me earlier. How bad are you exactly?”</p><p>“I’m bleeding a bit.”</p><p>“I know that, Mac, kind of guessed when you said stabbed. Dammit, you can’t keep doing this sort of thing. <em> How bad is it? </em>”</p><p>“I’m—I suspect that I might pass out once I run out of Pewter.”</p><p>He was actually sure of that, and wondered if Jack would be able to tell that.</p><p>Jack cursed harshly, and then Mac heard a noise on the other end—like dried branches cracking.</p><p>“You stay there, and you burn Pewter until I get to you, you hear me? Fuck, why didn’t you tell me that before? We could have tried to move exfil closer to you.”</p><p>Well, Mac didn’t think it would be so bad, but he guessed that saying that had got kind of old, all things considered.</p><p>“You don’t pass out, Mac,” Jack said, “I’m gonna hang up and call Matty, but I’ll call you again, and you’d better answer it.”</p><p>“Okay,” Mac said, but he doubted that he would be able to keep that promise.</p><p>After the call, he kept burning the Tin and paying attention to his surroundings. The Pewter he kept only on a low burn, to stop him from passing out for as long as possible.</p><p>The right side of his pants clung to the skin of his leg, warm and sticky, and for the first time since he’d been stabbed, Mac looked down, staring at the huge dark—in that light, it looked almost black—on the khaki fabric.</p><p>As the minutes passed and the last of the Pewter he’d ingested burned, he started to feel everything he feared. First, his head felt like it would just… float away, at the same time that his body seemed to weigh a ton. He dragged himself farther away from the road—it was unlikely that a car would pass, but still…</p><p>When he lied on the ground, that lightheadedness alleviated, and he just stared at the greyed and starless sky through the faint curtain of mist.</p><p>Should he have tried to deal with the wound earlier? Maybe. But he had been avoiding to get even more Aluminum inside the injury—in the end, it hadn’t mattered, and he just bled out.</p><p>He lied there, feeling his heart beating furiously inside his chest and trying to control the breaths that had become shorter.</p><p>Finally, there was just the encompassing tiredness that took over his body, it felt like his limbs were too heavy to move, and even his grip on the phone slipped. His legs ached, the muscle fatigued and hurting from running. Layered upon that was the weakness that Mac was sure it wasn’t due to the Pewter dragging, but it had more to do with the stabbing.</p><p>In a last attempt of trying to keep himself awake, Mac turned the phone screen on and flared Tin at the same time, not strong to the point of dazzling him, but just enough to make him startle awake for a few seconds—in the darkness, it seemed like unconsciousness was even more inviting. He let the phone fall against his neck.</p><p>The Tin flare made his wounds, even the one on his arm, that wasn’t totally healed yet, protest. However, now that fiery discomfort was replaced by a piercing coldness—and wasn’t that weird?</p><p>With a hysterical laugh that was more a groan than anything else, he remembered the thing about discussing his tombstone, and he wondered if this was it for him, was this how he died?</p><p>Well, at least he would die doing something good and that mattered. It was more than he could imagine, thinking back to his life before Phoenix Foundation, and his team, and, well… he was just glad for having that…</p><p>Mac blinked a few times, and each time it got a bit harder to reopen his eyes… the mist was so pretty tonight, and it reminded him of his mother—he didn’t remember a lot about her, only her voice, and the way <em> she </em> didn’t fear the mists that fell upon the Earth every night. It was another reason why he felt at ease outside when it was dark.</p><p>There was a vibration against his neck that pulled Mac a bit back from those thoughts. He fumbled until his hand gripped something—a phone? What?</p><p>Mac recognized the number on the screen… why was Jack calling him, an where was—</p><p>Oh, yes. He’d promised to answer this call, Mac remembered now. He pressed the green button on the screen and then pressed the phone against his ear.</p><p>“Jack?”</p><p>“Glad to hear you Mac, I’m doing all the work, like always,” there was a tightness to Jack’s voice that was kind of scaring Mac, “I just called Matty, and she moved the exfil…”</p><p>“Good,” that was good, right?</p><p>“How are you feeling now?”</p><p>“I—” Mac paused, trying to take a deeper breath, “I ran out of Pewter.”</p><p>There was a long sigh, and then Jack spoke again.</p><p>“Hey, Mac,” and now Jack’s voice was sharp, like when he needed to say something that was very important, “I also called Desi, asked her how to deal with this… Mac, do you think—forget that. I need you to burn any Aluminum that might have entered your body.”</p><p>“Wha—”</p><p>“Just do this, Mac. Burn it.”</p><p>“But the Tin—”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter now, Mac. Just burn the Aluminum, okay? I have Pewter on me—learned to always carry some, since the first time you passed out on me after a drag. I just need you to burn the Aluminum so it’s not a problem anymore, got it?”</p><p>“Okay,” Mac replied.</p><p>He was so tired, and all he wanted was to sleep now, but he did as Jack told, he tapped on his metal reserves and there he felt it, the remaining Tin, and something else—another metal that shouldn’t be there. Concentrating, he burned the Aluminum. Instantly, he felt the reserve of Tin vanishing with the other metal.</p><p>“Did it,” he gasped.</p><p>His senses were so clouded by the blood loss and the exhaustion that Mac barely felt the difference once the Tin was gone.</p><p>Jack was saying something, but Mac couldn’t make out all the words, and the voice on the phone seemed to get farther and farther away…</p><p>His eyes fluttering, Mac heard a thud as the phone slipped from his hands, and as much as he tried to stay awake, darkness eventually claimed him.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And we stop here because there will be a day when I’ll be able to write a proper follow up comfort scene, but that day is not today, so this is basically just hurt. I assure that, in my mind, Mac does survive and recover xD</p><p>So, if you read this weird thing until the end, I’d love to hear your thoughts, if you want to leave a comment!  :)</p><p> </p><p>(Yeah, I kind of took a lot of liberties with how Aluminum works—as far as I know, at least, because I only read the first trilogy and nothing more in the Cosmere—and sort of turned it into Mistborn kryptonite. *shrugs* This was supposed to be only about Pewter drag, but then things I read on the Coppermind gave me ideas. This was supposed to be a 1.5k words fic, but it got out of hand. </p><p>Pewter really burns faster than other metals, that wasn’t just for the drama.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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